Transformed Life: Paul’s Final Warning: Unity, Wolves, And A Church That Stands | Romans 16:17-27

We finish Romans with a sober call to guard the gospel and a hopeful promise that the God of peace will crush Satan. We name divisive tactics, expose flattering falsehoods, and commit to unity that stands on Scripture, not trends.

• two threats named: division and obstacles to doctrine
• unity that welcomes differences without tolerating wolves
• smooth talk and flattery as tools of deception
• training in truth to spot counterfeits quickly
• from Genesis 3:15 to Revelation 20, the serpent is crushed
• the gospel we guard is the gospel that guards us
• resolve to preach Christ clearly for generations

If there's any now that wants to come to know you for the first time, today's a good day. Maybe they want to join our church family, maybe they just want a pastor to pray over them. However they need to respond, would they do that now?

Chapters

• 0:03 Welcome And Invitation
• 0:38 Reading Romans 16:17–20
• 1:39 Finishing A Year In Romans
• 2:59 Two Dangers: Division And Obstacles
• 5:07 Unity With Differences, Not Dividers
• 7:20 Wolves In The Flock And Pastoral Vigilance
• 10:58 Avoiding False Teachers And Their Motives
• 13:05 Smooth Talk, Flattery, And The Naive
• 16:03 Holding To The True Gospel
• 18:14 Boston Story: When Culture Leads The Church
• 22:27 Guard The Gospel Or Lose The Glory
• 24:18 The Gospel Guards The Church
• 26:18 From Genesis To Revelation: The Snake Crusher
• 30:02 Stand Firm Against Cultural Pressure
• 32:05 Pray, Respond, And Build On The Word

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Hello and welcome to the FBC El Doredo Sermon Podcast. My name is Taylor Guerrera and I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist. And I want to thank you for listening into our sermon this week. And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo. Would you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week? Amen. Open with me to Romans chapter 16. Romans 16. I'm gonna read verses 17 through 20. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. But your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, as we finish Romans this morning, would you just speak by your spirit? Use these moments that we have together. For your glory, we ask. In Christ's name. Amen. Well, this morning we are completing the book of Romans, and I want to think about that for a second. I want you to think about that. We began Romans way back in January. The I believe the first week of January, we began the book of Romans. And we have walked through it this whole year, and now we arrive at the end of it. We've had a few stops along the way. We stopped in Jonah for a little bit and a few other stops along the way, but we've been in Romans all year long, and so I thank you, first of all, for hanging with us and walking with us through this unbelievable letter to the church at Rome. And uh I'm so thankful to now arrive at Romans 16, uh, verses 17 through 20 as we end our time in Romans again this week. And Paul says this, I appeal to you, brothers. So, first of all, I am urging you, Paul, for Paul, this is not a mere suggestion suggestion. This is not one idea among many. You can try if you'd like, but I appeal to you. You need to do this, my brothers, and we think of that more generally, obviously, brothers and sisters, the congregation. And he says this to watch out now for two groups. Number one, for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. And he says this, avoid them. And so I appeal to you to watch out for these two groups. Number one, uh, those who cause division, those who would come into the life of the church for the sake of causing division. Now, here's something important that we saw in Romans 14, that really we've seen throughout our series through Romans, is that within the church there can be, will be, should be many different people from many different walks of life with many different upbringings and ideas and even opinions within the church. We celebrate that. There's many different preferences of how different things might go or different things might should operate. We celebrate that and we uh hear those things gladly and welcome those thoughts and opinions and preferences gladly. What Paul is talking about here is is not a kind of division uh in that there's just people that maybe simply have a very kind idea that we could do it this way instead of the other way. No, no. There's that's a that's a beautiful part of the church that we all come into this room and we're all different, but we just make it work for the sake of the unity of the gospel. What Paul means when he's talking about those who would cause division, these are those that come into the life of the church and they just have a lust for disagreement, a lust for division, for an intentional rift. They want to cause battles. And if there's not something we can battle about, they will find something to battle about, they will make something, form something to battle about. These are those who, we'll see in a minute, don't serve our Lord Christ, but want to sneak into the life of the church and and they want to cause problems within the church, and they want to make the church that is a place that is divided. Why? So that the church can lose its footing, its standing, that the church can lose the unity for which the gospel calls us to. So, number one, watch out for those who are causing division. And number two is this watch out for those who would create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. So, what does it mean, those who are creating obstacles? We can think in terms of this, those who just desire to come into the life of the church and just make things, spiritually speaking, so much harder than they need to be. How can I make it harder for you to be a part of the life of the church? We see in Romans 14 once again, we saw the ideas of different food laws that maybe those who had a Jewish upbringing wanted to put some of these uh laws of food and festivals onto those that didn't have that Jewish upbringing. And then on the other side, we saw Gentiles being very unkind about those who would seek to follow these uh festivals and food laws. And these divisions are forming uh because there were those that might be making this harder than it needs to be, or judging those that would want to make it maybe harder than it needs to be. It may be that Paul is referring to this specific thing, but likely what Paul is doing here is really more preventative in nature. Be on the lookout for what could be. Be on the lookout for those who want to come into the church and create division, those who want to come into the church and really create a false teaching that we would follow something other than the doctrine we've been taught, other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, here's what's interesting this morning. We had such a fun week last week, didn't we? In 16, 1 through 16, it was so fun because Paul was just celebrating people in the life of the church. For 16 verses, it was name after name after name of all these people in the life of the church that were doing so much good for the sake of the gospel. We even ended in verse 16 of how we welcome one another, greet one another with a holy kiss, that there is this welcoming aspect within the life of the church as we think about all of those from different walks of life, from different uh uh uh men and women and Jews and Gentiles and from every walk of life you can think of, they come together and Paul rejoices in this unity. There's welcome in this unity, and then 17. We had so much fun, and all of a sudden the tone completely changes. It completely changes to now that Paul is even calling us to avoid certain people, avoid certain people who would come into the church and cause division and create obstacles. John Calvin talked about the need for the pastor to really have two voices one voice for the sheep, and one voice for the wolves. One voice for the sheep that's, Lord willing, hopefully used about 98% of the time. The nurturing voice, the caring voice, the welcoming voice, the how can I help uh encourage you and grow you in the faith voice? And then there is a voice that the pastor must have for the wolves. You think of Psalm 23? What does it say there? That your rod and your staff, they comfort me. It's interesting. The shepherd has a rod and a staff. Now, hopefully the staff is used most of the time to guide the sheep along, to maybe draw the sheep close to himself, but occasionally, when the wolves seek to come for the sheep, the rod must be used. And you're saying, Taylor, you're you're talking a big game right now. You're not the most impressive individual. I mean, do you really have uh this voice for the wolves? Well, uh when the wolves come, when the wolves seek to devour the church, for which I was tasked with helping provide oversight. And if you're a wolf out there, you may say, again, Taylor, I'm not that scared of you, but I I can I'm willing to come 33 deacons deep as well. We can have a conversation with a few others because the unity of the church is important. It's not something, and this is backed up by the word of God, it's not something that we play with. It's not something that we take uh treat lightly or take for granted. When there are those, and we'll see they come from the outside, again, we'll see in just a minute, they they're not serving Christ, but when there are those who want to inflict harm upon the church, the believers in the church, we take that seriously. We don't live in this just anything goes type environment. We say this that when people are trying to harm the work of the gospel that is taking place, that's something we bring all hands on deck and and we say this, not on our watch. The gospel going forward is too important for all this. And so what does Paul say? Avoid them. Avoid them. You say, does that sound very welcoming and loving? Well, I uh it doesn't mean that when I when I see the wolf around town, I can't love them. It doesn't mean that I I I'll stop praying for them. It doesn't mean any of that, but what it does mean is that if if someone wants to be a wolf and come into the sheep of First Baptist Church of El Doredado, that's we're that's just not something that can happen here. That's just not something that we can allow in our midst. And it's interesting because Paul is pretty adamant on this throughout his ministry. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, for uh the first five verses, he describes people in the last days who will come. And as he's describing it, it it it it it may be the last days, but it sounds like 2025. I mean, all of these identifications of these people who are coming, they are heartless, they are lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, all of these terms, and then verse 5, having the appearance of godliness, so they look the part, but denying its power. And then he ends with this once again avoid such people. Avoid such people. Verse 18 For such persons, these individuals, they do not serve our Lord Christ, but they serve their own appetites. Literally, that word means they serve their bellies. That means they have a hunger for discord. They they uh find their uh their satisfaction in creating disruption, they want to cause disunity within the life of the church, and this is what they're seeking after, and it continues. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. Here's what's interesting they do this by smooth talk and flattery, and so here's what's so dangerous sometimes about false teaching and those who want to cause disruption in the life of the church, it can sound so good. Like, in fact, it sounds great. That so often false teaching can sound sound good, and and and it's an illustration that, my goodness, has been told a million times over to the point where we're all tired of it and it's just become cliche. But here it is again. The the old illustration of the dollar bill and the person that's trying to spot the counterfeit, and those who are trained to find the counterfeit, what do they do? Do they study the counterfeit bill? No, you know this. They study the real thing. And they get to know the real bill so well that when the counterfeit comes across their desk, in an instant they know. They know that it's not the real thing. My question for us in the church family, in the church body, are we going to be naive? Are we gonna allow the false thing to come into our midst in its seduction, in its flattery, or are we gonna know the word of God so well? Are we gonna know this truth so well that hide it in our hearts so deeply that when the false thing comes, we spot it from a mile away? That that we know what the truth is so well that we can't be deceived by the wrong thing. Because here again is what's fascinating about false teaching. If if someone stood up here on a Sunday morning and and they said this, and I I I hate to even say these words from stage, if they said Jesus is not the Son of God, okay? I hope everybody in this room in that moment would point down to the stage and say, That is a false teacher in our midst. I hope we would get that one right. I I hope you would say, hey, that's probably the kind of guy we need to avoid, okay? Here's the issue with false teaching, with those who want to cause division or create obstacles to the doctrine we've been taught. What they say is about 98% beautiful. It's it's probably ninety-eight percent according to the word of God. In fact, it's for 98% of it, they may even be quoting the Word of God. Now, maybe they've taken a verse and ripped it out of its context to make it form their own preference or opinion, but 98%, it sounds so good, and then there's this 2% that is just so twisted, but we've already been captivated by the 98%, and just that little twist to the truth can wreck our faith. And we see it all the time. We see many who uh want to give a type of teaching that that sounds good and sounds loving, but at the tail end of it they want to provide for us maybe just a twist on uh it could be anything in our culture today, just a twist on God's design for marriage or sexuality or gender or God's design for this or that, or whatever it might look like. 98% of the way we're almost trapped in there and we're almost caught up with it, and then they twist it at the end. And it's deceptive and it's smooth talk and it's flattery. And here's the thing if we have the hearts of the naive, we can be sucked into this. And again, from the first part of Paul's ministry all the way through the end, this is what he's talking about in Galatians, uh, the earliest letter we have from Paul, you may remember these words, but even if we or an angel from heaven, this is 1.8, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. If anyone comes forward and starts preaching a gospel that is different from the gospel, the gospel we know, let him be accursed. Give him no standing in the church, cast that one out. In uh 2 Timothy chapter 4. Now we look at the very last letter that Paul wrote in 4, verses 3 and 4. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having, look at this, itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. That there is a day coming, and my goodness, do we not see it every day? There is a day coming, Paul says, that people will long for the watered-down version of doctrine, the watered-down version of the gospel, the one that may fit in better with the world, that version of the message of God, and because they're longing for this, they'll just bring in teachers that will tell them exactly what they want to hear, and all of a sudden, they are wandering off into far-reaching places that are far from the word of God. I remember walking around in Boston, and uh I was I was with a uh a church planner and a team of folks that were up visiting him, and he was just walking us around Boston, and we got to the Boston Commons area, this beautiful kind of uh grass area right where the uh Massachusetts State House is. It's just it's stunningly beautiful if you've been out there. But uh I've got a picture of a church there. This is the uh cathedral church of St. Paul. And you see, I mean, this is Boston Commons here, and we're looking at this church, this picture taken on a beautiful day. But if you think about Boston Commons and the beauty of it, you can go to the next picture as well, a little closer view of this church. The Cathedral Church of St. Paul. Boston Commons is the place where in the great awakening in our country, George Whitfield preached. So this church looks upon the field where George Whitfield preached the gospel and awoke a nation to the Word of God and the gospel of God. Uh this church is sitting right across from the Massachusetts State House, and the guide said that that is intentional. They wanted to make sure that the state always followed the church. It's looking right at it. Well, the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, obviously named after Paul who wrote Romans and most of the rest of the New Testament. This church in 2013 put this kind of new uh art piece above, this spiral nautilus. And I saw an interview just this week, a video with the man who designed it. And the church wanted this, and so they went with this man's design. His goal was, and these are his words, to make sure that it really had nothing inherently religious about it. Because as the church, they certainly didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable with any kind of religious look to the church. He said he chose this spiral design because what it really shows is the way that our faith is ever growing and expanding. If that sounds like a good thought, let me just tell you, he's not talking about the things you're thinking about. His thought is this to show how faith is ever expanding and becoming more and more inclusive. And even this, right now, and you can look it up on the website, this is not me saying anything that's that's not true. Every Friday morning, they invite Muslims to their church to carry out their prayers every Friday morning because they want to be open to all faiths. And so it's interesting here that this church, across from the statehouse, across from the lawn where George Whitfield preached, uh placed in this position that the state might follow the church, I was haunted by the fact that my guide suddenly told me they achieved everything they wanted. The state did, in fact, follow the church, but the church just didn't hold up their end of the bargain. The church decided that the word of God could be secondary to culture. The church decided that the this church named after Saint Paul didn't need to take that word seriously when Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 2 said that I endeavored to know nothing among you except for what? Except for Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I just wonder, church family, is First Baptist El Dorado going to be a church that guards the gospel? That guards the gospel, that knows this word of God so well and teaches the word of God so well and understands the word of God so well that we would not be uh trapped and enticed by the things of this world to cave into the world and leave this word behind. Are we going to be the church that stands firm? Because here's my thought. When I'm 105 years old, and I'm sitting in some retirement home one day, and if someone tells me, they say, Taylor, you won't believe it. First Baptist El Dorado, they caved in. I'm gonna look at my nurse, and I'm gonna say, get me down there. Y'all laugh, but I haven't told a joke. And I'm gonna say, get me to the church, and I'm gonna walk in the building. I'll go to the pastor's office, let him know he's not worth or not living worthy of the calling he's received. I'll come to this pulpit, I'll unscrew this plaque that says, We would see Jesus, and on my way out, in the words of 1 Samuel chapter 4, I will announce Ichabod over the church, which means this the glory of God has departed. But I don't worry about that. I don't think that'll be the case. Because I believe this is a church, as has been for 180 years, that guards this gospel, that protects this gospel, that preaches the word of God as received from this word. Because I want us to see two things. One, the church guards the gospel, but I also want to see this that the gospel guards the church. So not only do we guard the gospel, and we will do that, but also the gospel guards the church. Look with me in verse 20. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Again, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Why do we take doctrine so seriously? Why are we uh so adamant on holding tight to the word of God, to the doctrine as has been handed down to us? Why do we guard the gospel? Is because I read verse 20 that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under his feet. And my thought is simply this, church family, I I want to be on his team. That at the at the end of all this, at the end of all of our days, I just want to make sure I'm on the side of the God of peace who crushes Satan under your feet. And I love how even Paul draws up this verse. Number one, the God of peace. That's beautiful. That's a beautiful term. That's a term that brings uh encouragement to me. But the God of peace, but don't forget, he's also a God of power because he will soon crush Satan under his feet. And I just can't help but think about a few things throughout scripture where we see this story played out. In Genesis 3.15, we talked about it a few months ago. We started here as we started through the gospel project. When man and woman find themselves in sin, they have rebelled against God. God graciously walks through the garden and he looks upon the serpent and he says these words that I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Here's the translation of that: that God looks at the serpent, who is the evil one, Satan himself, and says, There is coming one from the offspring of woman who will ultimately crush your head. And you will bite his heel, you will uh get a uh a shot in, but ultimately uh the the snake crusher, the head crusher, is coming. Then you fast forward to the gospels, you look at the story of Christ Jesus coming to us, and you look at the cross, you look at Jesus taking sin upon himself. Certainly Satan's blow was given to Christ upon the cross, and yet then you look early Sunday morning when Christ rose from the grave, defeating sin and death, and once and for all now what we see is that the snake has been crushed by the resurrection of Christ. And there's the good news that Genesis 3.15 was pointing to. But then the story's not even over because the the snake crushing really continues. It was it was uh he was crushed in that moment, uh, but infinite uh later on we will see the uh ultimate infinite for good and for all destruction. Revelation 20, verses 7 through 10. It reads this and when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison. That doesn't sound good at all. And will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, together them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. The story's getting worse. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. This is worst of all. You think about this moment when Satan is released from his prison in these last days, and what does he do? He he uh uh brings an army together for battle, and their army is the number of the sand of the sea. This is a large, large army. They march on the broad plain, and they're coming to the camp where all the saints, that's you and me, all those who know Jesus Christ, are inside, and it sounds like a war is about to happen. And it sounds like, because it's true, that Satan has an army, once again, as many as the sand of the sea, and then you just read the last part of the verse, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And that is the most anticlimactic scene. That we were ready to watch a war unfold, and then it just said this, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them. I remember someone saying this, and we've got to remember it, that Satan is God's uh opponent, but not God's opposite. You see, sometimes we think Satan is just as powerful as God, but just on the bad side. No, no, that's not it at all. That as his whole army is there waiting to fight, God just says, uh, let the fire fall, and the story's over. And Satan is destroyed. It's the same thing he does just earlier in Revelation chapter 12. Now, war arose in heaven. This is when Satan's being thrown down to earth. War arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. Think about this for a second. When Satan and this dragon, this dragon's being cast down to earth, this is a big moment. And yet, who is nowhere to be found in these verses? God. Not that he's not there, of course he's there. But think about how this unfolds. When Satan is making war in heaven and needs to be cast down, what does God do? He just delegates the task. He just tells Michael and the boys, take care of it. And they do. Because Satan is God's opponent, but he's not God's opposite. And we return to Romans chapter 16 and we read verse 20 again, that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. And this is good news for the life of the church. That if we can just say this, that we are committed no longer, uh, no matter what culture says, no matter what the world says, no matter what the wolves say, no matter what the dividers who want to come in say, no matter what those who want to cause obstacles say, that we are just committed so deeply to the word of God, to the gospel of God, so that at the end of our days and every day leading up to that, that we can know that we are on his side and his team, not just guarding his gospel, but letting his gospel and really himself guard us. If we can just be committed to being on his side, then we will be those safely in the camp who look out as fire falls and Jesus Christ wins. And that's our story, not just now, but forevermore, that we by the gospel are on his side. And so, church family, what are we called to do here at the end of Romans? We've spent a whole year walking through it. We've learned a lot. We've learned, first of all, just how sinful we are. You didn't miss that in those first three chapters. And in the next few chapters, you learn just how gracious Christ Jesus is. I'm worse than I ever thought possible, and he's better than I ever dared dream. And we've learned all this, and then at the end, what do we do? How do we put this into practice? We simply guard it. We simply make sure we live according to that word. And when anyone tries to come our way and preach anything else and teach anything else, if anyone comes our way and says, uh, don't you need to just open it up to the world a little bit and cave in in any way that we will just be a people that love our world and culture, that care for our world and culture, but how do we do it? Uh we do it by living according to this word. We do it by not caving in. We do it so that a hundred years from now, as someone is passing through El Dorado, Arkansas, and they happen to be in on a Sunday morning, they happen to see this church downtown, they would walk in and they'd hear the gospel. They wouldn't hear clever stories, funny jokes, they wouldn't hear, you know, just little life ideas about how to be a better you by next weekend. No, no. They'd hear the gospel. They'd hear the doctrine as delivered. And they would be a congregation, First Baptist would, both now, the last 180 years, 180 years from now, that just says this we're gonna stand on the word of God. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, thank you for your word. Lord, give us your word, teach us your word, let us lean on your word, let us rejoice in your word. Lord, let us uh plant our lives upon the firm foundation that is your word. And Lord, we thank you that you've given us your word, that you've given us the gospel. Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ, what he's done to save us, to give us life. We thank you for the book like Romans that has taught us just how much you love us, how much you've done for us. And so, Lord, let us be those that treasure this word, treasure it enough to stand on it and proclaim it. And would this continue to be a church that makes much of Jesus? Lord, if there's any now that wants to come to know you for the first time, today's a good day. Maybe they want to join our church family, maybe they just want a pastor to pray over them. Lord, however they need to respond, would they do that now? Lord, we give this time of worship to you in Christ's name. Amen. Would you stand as you do? I'll be down front if you'd like to respond in any way.